Contents

History

Samoa Joe had the longest title reign to date when he held the belt for 22 months. During his reign, ROH held a cross-promotional show with Frontier Wrestling Alliance in the United Kingdom on May 17, 2003 called Frontiers of Honor. At that show, Joe turned the title into the ROH World Championship when he defended it against The Zebra Kid. Since then the title has been defended in Germany, Canada, Switzerland, Austria, Mexico and Japan.

On August 12, 2006, the ROH Pure Championship was unified with the ROH World Championship after ROH Pure Champion Nigel McGuinness lost to ROH World Champion Bryan Danielson in Liverpool, England in a title unification match. The match was contested under pure wrestling rules, with the stipulation that both championships could be lost by disqualification or count out.

In 2010 the title belt, along with the ROH World Tag Team Championships, was redesigned. The new belt has an eagle with its wings spread over a picture of the world with an ROH logo on the top. This design also includes various flags on different countries. In December 2012, a new design (as featured above) was introduced at the Final Battle iPPV.